Moon and Men

I have a weird take here, but hear me out: humans landing on the Moon has become underrated. For some reason it’s only a small blip on the historical radar. World War 2 starts in 1939, ends in 1945. JFK was elected in 1960, the Dodgers win the World Series in 1965, we went to the Moon in 1969, the same year Mickey Mantle retired, the Steelers won their first Super Bowl in 1974. It just fits into the historical timeline, even though it really should not. It should stand out in the national zeitgeist, a shining star, if you will, in human history. For some reasons it’s not, but I think this book really contextualizes what going to the Moon accomplished.

The book is a history of all of the men who’ve gone to the Moon, whether by stepping foot on it or flying by it, on the Apollo missions. It mainly follows Apollo 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, & 17, with some references to 9 & 10 as well. That’s a lot of ground to cover - over 700 pages reading or 23 hours listening - but it goes by so fast, just because what’s going on for a majority of the time - lunar exploration - is so interesting. This book will not only let you marvel at the feat of going to the Moon itself, but will also get you excited about the stories of the astronauts themselves. It features interviews with all of the astronauts, as well as some of the crew on the ground, and hearing all of them talk about the mission is like hearing a relative talk about the coolest story of their good ol’ days, except this story is infinitely cooler. Of course it’s cool to hear from Neil, Buzz, and Michael, but it was almost even cooler to hear from the astronauts from the later missions, because they spent way more time on the lunar surface than the original pair.

This book will ALSO make you care about the geology of the Moon itself. For 700 pages it packs as much information as possible into it. After getting to the Moon, the main reason for being there was to get information about it: how was it formed, were there lava flows on it, etc, etc. so by around Apollo 15, not only was NASA training test pilots to be astronauts, they were training to be geologists. So when Apollo 17 finds orange soil on the surface, you know it’s a big deal.

The Apollo missions are ripe for storytelling. Each one accomplishes something new, or deals with some unforeseen problem. Apollo 13 is the obvious example, but Apollo 12 was struck by lightning (!), Apollo 11 had various program alarms during lunar landing (1202&1201), and many more. The drama is there, and so is the reward. Setting foot on another planet is such a ludicrous concept that every time it happens it is instantly enthralling.

I think everyone should read this book, so it’s going in the Hall of Fame. It’s too good to pass up I think. Either you’ll learn something new, or be introduced into the world of spaceflight. A cool thing you can do while reading this is look up the photos or videos of the events as you read them. Adding that visual layer to this book just made it even better, and there’s some good stuff out there if you search on Youtube. Plus, NASA’s planning to go back to the Moon soon with Artemis, so there’s no better time to read up on the history of humanity on the Moon.

So: read it, look up the photos and videos so you can see it, and enjoy it, because it’s really unbelievable. Like Hakeem on the Rockets.